Following a series of social media posts in the days prior, CBS immigration reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez’s trip to the U.S.-Mexico border finally yielded a formal news segment as, during Thursday’s CBS Mornings, he relayed that “it was extremely quiet” and he has “not see[n] a single migrant” while traversing it by land or water (the Rio Grande) after having seen in the past “hundreds of people” at a time.
Of course, this was all due to the change in posture and surge in resources by the Trump administration. Montoya-Galvez eventually admitted this was because the President made the decision “to effectively close down the American asylum system” and thus discouraged crossers.
Fill-in co-host Matt Gutman tossed to Montoya-Galvez in the second half-hour and minutes after the latter first filed a report fretting about the case of a U.S. Army soldier’s wife being arrested by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) on April 14.
“[W]e all know that immigration is a hot button issue in America. More recently, it’s been in the spotlight due to the crackdown by masked ICE agents in unmarked cars in cities across the country. But in previous years, the focus on immigration was at the U.S.-Mexico border, where illegal crossings skyrocketed during the Biden administration. Now they have fallen to a 55-year low,” Gutman said.
I still can’t get over this story on Thursday’s ‘CBS Mornings’ with the stunning visuals showing the U.S. southern border is an absolute ghost town. No illegal immigrants running past rows of bushes or wading through the Rio Grande.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 24, 2026
All because of President Trump ENFORCING the… pic.twitter.com/OrMDGkfWsX
Montoya-Galvez’s piece started with stunning visuals of an untouched landscape in comparison to scores of people in the same areas (under the last President):
Miles and miles of water divide the U.S. and Mexico here in Texas. While in the Rio Grande with Border Patrol, we did not see a single migrant. Less than three years ago, this section of the border was the epicenter of a dire humanitarian crisis. Last time we were here at the U.S.-Mexico border, near Eagle Pass, we saw hundreds of people, including families with young children, cross the Rio Grande to enter the country illegally. Now, the border is extremely quiet.
Del Rio Sector Chief Anthony Good with the Border Patrol then dropped a truly stunning statistic: “We’re seeing about 32 apprehensions a day from here.”
Montoya-Galvez was stunned, noting Good and his agents “went from thousands of people crossing per day in this sector of the border to a few dozen, about 30 people a day.” He added Good told him “the seismic change mainly stems from President Trump’s move to effectively close down the American asylum system.”
“During the previous administration, there was a lot of what we just called releases, but they were being paroled into the country quickly and in mass numbers, right,” Good added.
The CBS reporter also spoke to Eagle Pass, Texas’s fire chief, who said he’s never seen the border this quiet and attributed to those seeking to run across knowing they will “get deported”
Fire Chief Manuel Mello also said while “the immigration process” must “be reformed” and all people “treated with dignity,” “criminals” must “be deported.”
Crucially, Mello said “we’re looking at maybe one drowning every three months” in the Rio Grande versus “between three and six drownings a day” “two, three years ago.”
Montoya-Galvez presented the other side and those uneasy with the increased attention on interior enforcement of our country’s laws. Notice the response from a local rancher (click “expand”):
MONTOYA-GALVEZ: The politics of President Trump’s immigration policies have played out much differently far away from the border, in major cities like Chicago and Minneapolis, where aggressive arrests of non- criminal immigrants and fatal shootings by federal agents have triggered intense backlash. 56 percent of Americans now disapprove of President Trump’s handling of immigration. We met rancher, Beyer Junfin to ask him about that backlash. In 2023, his land was filled with migrants and their belongings.
BEYER JUNFIN: The situation here is night and day from two years ago. There was just piles of clothes. We had people crossing on a daily basis.
MONTOYA-GALVEZ [TO JUNFIN]: Some would say the reason that very few people are crossing this river behind us is because the Trump administration has been too harsh on immigration. What do you think about that?
JUNFIN: If harsh is doing things legally, then harsh it is and harsh it must be.
Tossing back to the co-hosts in New York, Montoya-Galvez both reiterated the case of the Army wife and conceded “[t]he razor wire behind us, guys, symbolizes the Trump administration’s aggressive zero tolerance posture on illegal immigration, and without a doubt, it is deterring people from crossing this border behind us illegally,” leaving “migrants..scared of coming here.”
Presenting both sides and including relevant visuals? It wasn’t that difficult and wholly in line with reporting based in reality.
ABC and NBC, take notes.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from April 23, click here.
